Five Days Grace (39 page)

"He'll just have to get over it. Plus, he owes me. Now, what am I going to do with you? Show you the house? Feed you? I can't take you anywhere if I want to keep you a secret, so I hope I can find something to feed you—"

"I brought take-out for dinner. Chinese. It's in your refrigerator," he said.

"You broke in with take-out?"

He nodded.

And she laughed again, happy as could be. "A full-service break-in. I like that. See, when I did that, you held a gun on me."

"Yeah. You're going to tell that story forever, aren't you? Fifty years from now, people will ask how we met, and you'll say I pulled a gun on you."

"Fifty years from now?" She liked the sound of that.

"Will that be enough? I'm not sure."

* * *

She showed him her house first. She wanted him to see the artwork in various places, hoping he liked the things she'd done, that it was a place where he could feel at home. She liked colors, bright colors, and lots of them.

He studied her work slowly, seriously, admired the pretty, whimsical, blown-glass bubbles hanging in the kitchen window, saying they looked fun and quirky and reminded him of her, as did the big piece in the dining room, which was just tons of metal squares of color. All of which pleased her.

The house had been a wreck when her father had first showed it to her. He'd bought it cheap, planning to fix it up one day, maybe for her, and when she and Luc were ready to move back to Baxter, her whole family had gone to work on it. Growing up the way she had, with a father and a brother-in-law in the restoration business, she and her brother and sister had all helped out at job sites from time to time. So Grace's house became a family project.

She had eclectic tastes, and liked shabby-chic, bohemian, old, repurposed things rather than traditional antiques. She wanted old furniture she could strip down and paint, even glaze and rough up, if she wanted to, and actually use, not older pieces that should only be admired carefully, preferably from a distance.

She knew it wasn't the kind of place Luc was accustomed to. It wasn't big or expensive or fancy, but it was a home, provided lovingly through the efforts of her family, and she was thrilled with it. She really wanted Aidan to like it.

"I can see you in it. It is all you, isn't it? Except for that?" He pointed to a sculpture on the end table in the living room, a twisted piece of metal.

"You're right. That's Luc's work."

"And that?" He nodded toward a painting in the hall near the front door, an impressionistic piece, moody and full of muted colors.

"His, too. Good eye."

"No, I just can't see you doing anything so... dull."

"There are people who would argue my use of color is amateurish."

"Screw them." He turned back to the wall she'd covered with mirrors rimmed in stained glass, during her mirror phase. "You look at these and you're happy. You think, 'The woman who did this is a happy woman. She loves her work. She thinks it's fun.' Don't let anyone dismiss your work because it's happy or fun. The world's tough enough without gloomy art hanging on the walls."

"Thank you. I really wanted you to like my work."

"I knew I would. I like you, and I knew I'd see you in your work."

Oh, she adored this man! The truth was Luc, while he'd never said it, had thought his work was so much more important and serious than hers.

She and Aidan worked companionably in the kitchen, warming up the food he'd brought, and then sat at the little table in the kitchen alcove to eat.

"I can't believe this is the first meal we've shared that wasn't like camp food eaten in a camp-like setting," she said, happy as could be.

"It's been an unusual courtship," he admitted. "Although, now that I think about it, it doesn't have to be. We could meet anywhere, Grace. Cincinnati's a good-sized city. We'd be safe there, even though your brother lives there, right? We could get dressed up. Okay, I could buy something to wear other than sweats and T-shirts, and then we could get dressed up and actually go to a restaurant. I could buy you a nice dinner. If we wanted some real privacy, we could check into a hotel for the weekend. You know, like a date."

"A date with you involves a weekend in a hotel?"

"It doesn't have to. I'm willing to court you. I'll be on my best behavior, if that's what you want," he offered.

"You would back up, start all over and play hard-to-get again?"

He laughed. "I am not hard-to-get—"

"Because I think I worked really hard for you—"

"For you, I was going to add. Just for you, I'm easy. But if you want me to make you work for it..."

"No, thank you. I'm perfectly happy with our courtship. I don't need dinner in a nice restaurant, and I'd rather we take our clothes off than get dressed up—"

"What a woman—"

"I've even fallen in love with that silly cabin now," she said. "Although pretty soon, the lack of heat, aside from the fireplace, will become an issue. And I won't lie. Room service sounds tempting. Plus, if my family drops by too often here... Okay, the hotel is a possibility."

"You make things so easy. You're so agreeable. I haven't met many women like that."

"There've been a lot, haven't there?" she asked.

"I don't know. What's a lot? I'm thirty-four, but I've spent a lot of time in war zones. The important thing is, I haven't met a one like you before, not even close."

* * *

They were curled up together in her bed later that night, the dog on the floor and pouting, when she said, "You found out something, didn't you? At the college?"

"I did."

"And you haven't told me yet, so that makes me think it must be really bad."

"No, not bad. At least, I don't think so. And I'll tell you whatever you want, whenever you want."

"All of it?"

"All of it. Although I doubt there's anything that's going to come as a surprise to you."

"Okay. Tell me now."

"She's a teaching assistant, not in his class but in the art department. Twenty-two. Blonde hair, blue eyes. You, but not as pretty or as nice."

"Thank you for that."

"It's true," he insisted. "She's just a girl, young and a little silly, overly dramatic and in love with the tragedy of it all—before it became a real tragedy and he died. You know, the whole older, unavailable man thing. She thought he was a brilliant artist, not properly appreciated by the world in general. Perfect, she said. She thought he was perfect. And if you ask me, that was her appeal to him. Sheer hero-worship. To her, he had no flaws. He could do no wrong."

Grace took that in. It was exactly what she expected. A young girl who thought he was practically a god. "How long had they been together?"

"Two months. Not long enough for her to see any of his flaws or make any real demands on him."

Two months? She tried to remember exactly what had been going on two months before Luc died. Had she seen anything? Had anything been different? Anything especially bad or stressful? She couldn't remember.

"Are you going to tell me her name?" she asked a moment later.

"Megan White. I'll pull her Facebook site up on your computer, if you like. You can look at her picture and read all about her. But I swear, honey, there's really nothing there. It was a fling. She hoped it would grow into something more, but reading between the lines from what she said he said to her, she was a nice little ego boost to him. That's it."

"Did he... Had he done anything like that before?" That was a particularly ugly thought.

"Not according to her."

"But he'd say that, right? I mean, any man would say that, wouldn't he?"

"I suspect he would."

She braced herself for the next question. "And what did he tell her about me?"

"The ever-popular and clichéd line about you not understanding him."

"Really?"

"Uh-hm. And that you got married fast, and it was a mistake."

"Well, I can't argue with that."

"Oh, you were right about the sugar substitute. It's hers. She spent her junior year of high school abroad. In France. Loves that fake sugar. She orders it online and has it shipped here. And he had one of those cheap, pay-as-you-go phones that he kept in his car. That's how they communicated. Looks like they kept things pretty private. The head of the art department didn't seem to know. When I asked his secretary about it, she gave me a couple of names of other instructors she often saw Luc with, and I asked them. Only one of them knew. I think if your mother-in-law really wants to do the scholarship thing, she could and probably not find out anything. The girl said she'd keep quiet, and the only person she told who she was seeing was her best friend. Apparently, her parents are very old-fashioned and would have been horrified that she was seeing a married man. What else do you want to know?"

"I don't know. What else do you think I need to know?"

"I swear, that's it. All the highlights."

"Okay. Thank you for doing that for me."

"You're welcome, honey. You okay?"

"Yes. I'm going to let this go. Really, I am. I have better things to do with my life than think about this or be sad about it."

"Yes, you do."

"I'm so glad you're here."

"Me, too, baby."

* * *

She managed to keep him hidden in her house for the weekend and considered it a small miracle, as well as a complete delight.

She worked on a charcoal sketch of him while he slept in her bed, feeling only a little bit guilty about using him as a model without his permission. He looked embarrassed when she showed him the sketch she'd done, and then he got quiet, telling her he was still getting used to looking like this, kind of pale and thin and just not himself.

Then he told her that his physical therapist recommended he try yoga to loosen up his hip and shoulder, so she pulled out her yoga mat and her spare and talked him through some poses. He kept staring down her shirt when she bent over and pretending he couldn't get his body into the right poses so she'd come help him, which involved her having her hands all over him. That eventually ended up with her rolling around on the floor with him while the dog danced and fussed around them, trying to figure out what game they were playing.

He cooked for her, and he wasn't bad at it. She pulled out the photo album for him, showing him her favorites from her time abroad and the photos she had of her family over the years, telling him family stories.

And when he slipped out of her house very early Monday morning, it felt every bit as awful as having to tell him good-bye the previous Tuesday when she'd left him at the lake.

Chapter 21

Sneaking around worked well for them, either with Grace at the lake or him at her house, until about six weeks later, when Aidan had to go back to Virginia.

Before he left, he had to do one thing he absolutely dreaded, and he'd asked Grace to join him. Nerves had him out on the road in front of the cabin, pacing, when she pulled up in her little blue hatchback. He opened the door for her, and she stepped out, looking as pretty and classy as could be in a plain, soft, greyish knit dress and a jacket that matched.

"Look at you, all dressed up," he said. "I've never seen you like this."

"It's not too much? Or not enough? I wasn't sure." She looked doubtful.

"No, you're perfect."

He caught her hands in his and just looked at her for a moment. She had her hair up in a knot, dainty little pearl earrings and small pearl necklace, a bit of soft pink color on her lips and her cheeks. She was so beautiful. It still caught him by surprise at times, just how beautiful she was. He'd get used to it, or as used to it as he could get, and she'd just be Grace. Then something would happen and he'd see her anew and be just blown away by how beautiful she was, inside and out, and mostly, that she was his.

He gave her a slow, soft kiss, hating to put her through this, but so damned grateful to have her by his side.

"I've never seen you in uniform," she said, eyeing the dress blues he'd had someone mail from Virginia and then had altered in town because he was still under his normal weight. She put her palms flat over his jacket, a finger trailing along the line of ribbons and medals pinned there. "You must have been busy, to have all of these."